Woman Claims Matt Lauer ‘Sexually Assaulted’ Her, And She Eventually Passed Out

Yesterday, we found out about Matt Lauer’s super creepy in-office lock button. Now we have a better idea on how he used it. Prepare yourselves. This is beyond disturbing.

NBC received two more complaints involving Lauer. One of those complaints came from a former female employee. She claims Lauer invited her into his office, locked the door with his super creepy button and “sexually assaulted her.” NYT’s word exactly. She eventually passed out and had to “be taken to a nurse.”

She said that she felt helpless because she didn’t want to lose her job, and that she didn’t report the encounter at the time because she felt ashamed.

Here’s where things get a little complicated. I’m getting mixed signals from this report. The woman claims Lauer invited her into his office. From there, he locked the door and asked her to unbutton her blouse. Right there. That’s where she should’ve went off. But according to the report, she did unbutton her blouse. Willingly.

She says he proceeded to pull her pants down and the rest is history. So it begs the question– was she initially complicit? At what point did this become assault? I’m not victim-blaming. I’m legitimately asking.

In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)

The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.

If that’s exactly how it went, I can kinda (and that’s a BIG kinda) understand why she didn’t immediately report the incident. She was probably a little embarrassed, because by unbuttoning her blouse, she sent the signal that some sexual behavior was OK. Right? If she said no from the beginning and he FORCED her to undress and sleep with him anyway, we’d be talking about a full blown rape case.

The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.

On Wednesday, the episode in Mr. Lauer’s office was reported to NBC News after the woman told her then-supervisor, who still works at the network. The woman said an NBC human resources representative had since contacted her.

The woman, who was in her early 40s at the time, told her then-husband about the encounter, which The Times confirmed with him in a phone call. The couple was separated at the time, and later divorced. She also described it to a friend five years ago, which the friend confirmed to The Times.

Regardless, Lauer is a cheating, lying, pervy man skank. He’s not the shiny, happy-go-lucky guy he tried to present himself as. And to think. NBC knew this all along.